The present invention relates to the antibiotic nystatin (referred to in the older literature as fungicidin), and more specifically to a process for the purification of crude, partially purified or contaminated nystatin.
Nystatin and its method of preparation from Streptomyces noursei are disclosed by Hazen et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 2,797,183. Reference may also be made to Hazen and Brown, "Fungicidin, An Antibiotic Produced by a Soil Actinomycete," Proc. Soc. Exptl. Biol. Med. 76:93 (1950) and Brown, Hazen and Mason, "Effect of Fungicidin (nystatin) in Mice Injected with Lethal Mixtures of Aureomycin and Candida albicans," Science 117:609 (1953). The antibiotic is hereinafter referred to by the single term "nystatin".
Several methods for isolating nystatin from the fermentation media are known to the prior art. Examples of such processes are Hazen et al., U.S. Pat. No. 2,797,183; Vandeputte et al., U.S. Pat. No. 2,786,781; Vandeputte et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,332,844; and Renella, U.S. Pat. No. 3,517,100. The nystatin isolated by known processes is not a highly purified, uniformly crystalline product. A method for obtaining nystatin in such a form is of course highly desirable, and several methods for achieving this result have been suggested by the prior art, but each has certain drawbacks. For examples of such processes, reference may be made to Vandeputte, U.S. Pat. No. 2,832,719; Dutcher et al., U.S. Pat. No. 2,865,807; Mendelsohn, U.S. Pat. No. 3,509,255; and Esse, U.S. Pat. No. 3,517,101.